The Gathering
by pinapple-chi-chi
Summary: A fanfic writer falls into one of her own stories, and Mary-Sues from all over the web begin to migrate to her fic.
1. Christine

A/N: This story is ABSOLUTLY NOT BASED ON OR INSPRIED BY ANYONE ELSE'S POSTS. It is 100% fiction and any similarities to other posts, Mary- Sue or otherwise are in the eye of the beholder. Some sections are supposed to be underlined, italicized, or somehow distinguished from the rest of the story; but since none of that would upload they are book ended by ~~ marks. And as always, please review!!  
  
~~ "I love you, Serena." He told her. And she smiled. ~~  
  
Christine set down her pen, tearing up at her own handiwork. She picked up the phone pad on which she'd composed her masterpiece, and hurried downstairs to transfer it to Microsoft Word. Poor Christine: she never re-read or edited her literary endeavors, which might have saved her a deal of heartache.  
  
This story was her seventh or eighth, but it would be the only one under her name. The others had met their demise within a few days of being posted. This one was about "Serena", a broken-hearted elvish princess who joined the Fellowship and experienced inner conflict over her attraction to Legolas, whose father was at odds with Elrond. Serena was supposed to marry Legolas and reconcile the families' differences with her incomparable charm, but before she got that far, Christine's confidence was shattered by a familiar torrent of flames. After a good ten minutes of bitter sobbing over her keyboard, Christine deleted the story, watched some re-runs of the Mary Tyler Moore show, and vowed never to write another fanfiction. The next morning she was at it again:  
  
~~Leah was a classic beauty with long, dark hair and honey colored eyes. She appeared to have everything a sixteen year old girl could want: looks, popularity, talent, and the captain of the soccer team as a boyfriend of six months; but sometimes she couldn't ignore a melancholy sense of dissatisfaction. ~~  
  
Leah's physique was actually modeled after Christine's, to an extent. Christine didn't imagine Leah would have to brush knots out of her long, dark hair, or cut bubble gum out of it on a regular basis, but friendly brown eyes are only a few shades away from honey. Her life was drawn more from Christine's fantasy than her experience. Not to say that she led an especially normal one. Christine and four other oddballs had formed a film goers club that watched old movies on the weekends and dressed up for the premiere of newer ones. They also attended Iraq peace protests and park concerts. Naturally, they had been to see Lord of the Rings four of five times and were good friends with Sheila, the ticket vendor.  
  
Since reading Lord of the Rings Christine had become taken with the idea of living in Middle Earth. She took advantage of every opportunity for wishing to wake up there (first stars, birthday candles, dandelion fluff, holding her breath in tunnels, and a few she had made up) and played mental games with herself to see what she would give up to be an elf (her tangled, gum ridden hair, her intellect, her right hand, her mobility.)  
  
Noteworthy is that the characteristic in which Christine took the most personal pride did not appear in Leah's description. Christine was smart. With a 1030 on her SSATs, she was at the top of her year, but she didn't speak up much in class.  
  
~~Leah lived at the very edge of town, and it was a long bus ride home from school. By the time she got home, it was usually dark or twilight. It was almost February, and tonight there wasn't even a moon to escort Leah to her front door. She was stepping onto the curb when she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, and then there was nothing. ~~  
  
"No, no, stupid." Christine could hear the flames already. Not to mention that her fourth story's real-world-to-Middle-Earth transition had involved a kidnapping.  
  
~~Leah was reaching for her little brother's hand through the flames steadily consuming their home, when suddenly her lungs gave out and she was out cold. ~~  
  
Christine scratched it out, beginning again with,  
  
~~Uncle Max had always had unusually pointed ears. Or maybe he was her great uncle. Actually, no one was quite sure about his connection to the Bellmont family. ~~  
  
She crumpled the sheet into a ball, tossed it at the waste paper basket and missed.  
  
~~Leah was writing a fan fic, the only activity that gave some relief from the gnawing dissatisfaction. It was about a mare named Aerin, one of Shadowfax's distant relatives. Something passed by Leah's window, its hooded figure silhouetted in her curtains. She got up from her desk.~~  
  
She got up from her desk, putting the phone pad aside, and started towards the kitchen. Christine caught her foot in the wire of her floor lamp, hit her head on the windowsill, and blacked out. 


	2. The New Arrival

A/N: Again, not based on anything but the wanderings of my cabin-fever plagued mind.  
  
We know where Christine was when she came to, but was she glad to find that her months of obsessive wishing had paid off? Well, not at first:  
  
~~Christine woke up blinking and rubbing her head, in which fireworks seemed to be going off. She wasn't that cold, considering her bare feet and baggy pajamas with little teacup prints and plastic buttons shaped like tulip heads, which were quite damp from the ground. Christine sat up and saw dark blotches in her line of vision, so she lay back down. The sky was so nice, she thought. It wasn't quite blue, it was more gray, but kind of blotchy in some spots, or maybe she was still dizzy..and about that..why was she dizzy?  
  
Christine sat up again. Where was she and why she was dizzy and wearing her teacup print pajamas with plastic buttons shaped like tulip heads and sitting on her phone pad with a pink pen through the spine? Scenarios of kidnappings reminiscent of CSI Miami raced through her mind. She was in an open field, bordered on one side by woods. She staggered to her feet and tried to turn around, missing her mark by about 45 degrees. She turned in the other direction until she could focus on the city opposite the woods. Her head was clearing now, and she thought it looked like an advertisement for a tourist resort in the tropics. It had trees growing up through the middle of it.  
  
It (finally) dawned on Christine that her dandelion, tunnel and birthday candle rituals had not been in vain, and her eyes and mouth got very wide. Grinning, she pressed the heels of her hands together and tapped her fingers gleefully. She hopped up and down. She ran around in a circle. On the verge of doing the Hamtaro dance, she stopped and looked around again. She peeled her wet teacup print pajamas with plastic buttons shaped like tulip heads away from her skin. How long had it been since she'd eaten? Christine then sat down in the wet grass and cried because she wanted to go home. ~~  
  
Umm..that was supposed to be a joke at the end. Flames, criticism, or validation of having read the story thus far much appreciated.  
  
-Marisol 


	3. The First

~~Following the formula Christine would have chosen for one of her fan fictions, she was found a few hours later by a woman in brown hunting garb. She couldn't have been hunting, though, or she'd have pulled back her hair, which was platinum blond and hung loose over her shoulders. The bow and arrows must have been for decoration. Christine drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, watching the approaching woman (who appeared at this range to have four 'o clock shadow). When he was within a few feet of her, Christine identified him and stood up, (a little disoriented) ready to run from the elf whose picture she'd spent hours fawning over.  
  
He bowed like a regular 18th century gentleman and said "Have you lost your way lady?" Christine didn't say anything. "My name is Legolas Prince of Mirkwood" Christine didn't say anything. "May I ask your name, or from whence you hail?" he asked, thinking her home must be very far indeed, and a hard journey to reach, considering her foreign apparel and it's traveled state. Christine didn't say anything. "At least come with me to Rivendell..." (probably her destination, being the only place of interest for several miles) "...and take rest and refreshment before you continue." He offered his hand. Christine didn't say anything.  
  
Legolas sighed and glanced behind him. The sun was low. He looked her over again. Her lips were blue. He couldn't bring himself to leave her there, mentally unstable as she must have been. He tried to lead her back, but she wouldn't budge. Finally, Legolas picked her up and hauled her over his head like a sack. He got a few feet before Christine found her voice, screaming and kicking and striking him with her notebook. He dropped her and backed away. "You are insane!" he told her. "Yes I know I know" Christine sobbed. "But wouldn't you be if you woke up in the middle of nowhere and one of Tolkien's characters popped up out of the grass."  
  
Legolas turned around and ran for his life. He didn't know who Tolkien was, being "one of his characters" sounded like an insult, or even a threat. He met up with his traveling companion, a girl of about fifteen, at the edge of the woods bordering the field. She had loaded their gear onto Legolas's horse, and was leading her mare, Aerin, towards the field. She was an elvish princess, and therefore perfect. She seemed to have an awful lot of colors: Silver-blond hair streaked with gold, and cerulean blue eyes flecked with ocean green. Her skin was very pale even compared with her white silk dress. One wondered how she had kept it so clean during her journey. In fact, one wondered at her selection of traveling clothes in the first place.  
  
Her eyes widened when she saw Legolas running back towards her. "What's wrong?" she asked her high pitched voice full of concern. "Nothing, no there was just." "Look!" she cut him off. "There's a girl."~~  
  
I don't know how the average Jane would react to waking up in a fan fiction, but I don't think she would gasp, bat her eyes, and be quite all right again. Anyway, please review w/ constructive criticism! -Marisol 


	4. Horses

Artemis: T/y, the feedback's very encouraging! It isn't supposed to be real though (and I'm fixing up the last chapter, imagine misspelling Tolkien)  
  
~~The blond she-elf rushed to the spot where Christine sat, rocking back and forth. She ran like a deer, but with her skirts clutched in one hand to keep them out of the high grass. She crouched down (skirts forgotten) and put a motherly hand on Christine's shoulder, her charming features accented in worry. "What's the matter??" she asked anxiously. "Oh no, who are you?" Christine said between sobs, as though this was the last straw. She smoothed her dress before answering "I am the lady Serena Liana Marique of Mirkwood." seeming pleased at the chance of telling her so. Christine found this unreasonably funny and her crying lapsed into laughter. Legolas hovered incredulously behind her.  
  
Christine was less surprised to meet one of her own characters than one of Tolkien's, or maybe she was still in the shock stage. The whole affair did have a dreamlike quality to it, and with the realization that the rules had changed to allow the impossible, came an acceptance of her new conditions. "My name is Christine" she told her wearily. "I'm from California" "Oh!" Legolas exclaimed, and the two girls looked up.  
  
"Of course, yes. Aragorn's girl, the pretty one, she was of the Californians!" Christine wondered if Arwen had some very distant heritage she had not heard of. "She was distressed too, when she first arrived" he assured Christine. He seemed very much relieved, and even eager to speak with her. Understanding was dawning on Serena as well. "Come" Legolas said, taking charge. "We'll take you to Rivendell, you can meet her there. You must tell me all about your home." He set off with energy, Serena trailing and Christine following obediently, falling naturally into Middle Earth's custom of walking single file.  
The horses worried her. Her experience in equestrianism consisted of a pony ride at the county fair when she was six. The ponies had been rigged up to a wooden wheel, with a pony at the end of each spoke. This was much different. Legolas and all the baggage (Christine's phone pad stuffed into the strap of the pack saddle) went to the white horse, which seemed displeased with the new arrangement. Serena mounted the chestnut one with ease and grace that reeked of fiction. Christine in her supple teacup pajamas could not manage what Serena had in a dress, so Legolas was obliged to dismount, lift her up in front of Serena, then reseat himself before kicking his horse into a trot.  
  
There was no saddle. There were no stirrups or reigns. There wasn't even a strap. Christine squeezed her eyes shut and wound her fingers into the horse's mane. Serena nudged Aerin into a walk. Presently, Christine opened her eyes and relaxed her whit-knuckled death grip on Aerin's mane. It was almost like the county fair, a loping, relaxing up and down pattern. "Okay, hold on" Serena warned her digging her heels into Aerin's flanks. She sprang into a canter. Christine lurched backwards into Serena. She tried to right herself, but fell forwards onto the horse's neck, and slid off to the side. She hung like a wet leaf on a windowpane for a few seconds, before dropping to the ground.  
  
If she'd been able to get wetter or dirtier, she probably would have. Serena leaned right, and Aerin turned compliantly, allowing Serena to scoop up Christine and deposit her back on the horse. They continued in this manner for two exhausting miles of little conversation, Serena backtracking every minute or so to collect a red eyed Christine. It was almost dark before the three of them reached the city.~~  
  
Suggestions? -Marisol 


End file.
